so, tune in to us tomorrow on "power lunch." we are the warmup. we are the pregame, i guess you could say. >> we will see you then, sue. terrific that will do it for this hour of power. street since begins right now. ♪ private eyes are watching you ♪ ♪ they see your every move >> is bizzaro tuesday on street since. the cia sex scandal taking another turn under a attack in belize. most bizarre of all, republicans and democrats may actually be getting along in washington, d.c.

get more on these market, how they are reacting to everything going on. give it us to straight, bob. the sector with the biggest gains today is utilities? >> yep. >> and i have no idea why. >> well, i will give you some ideas here. the dow utilities has been down nine straight trading days, until today. we have had a turn around. that's the fiscal cliff, folks. that's what this rise above is all about, trying to figure out a solution to this they are up today for the first time, some of the northeastern utilities have been weak because of the concerns over sandy. by and large, fiscal cliff, higher taxes on dividend stocks a major reason we have seen the stocks weak. the first day we have seen a

turn around, this is important, dividends more important than ever, virtuely a human part of the overall stock business. put up the numbers. this month, folks, the all-time record for dividend payout. got off the phone with standard and poor's, track this $35 billion payout in the month of november. pay out stocks four times a year, an all-time historic payout month, 35 billion. february, 31 billion. see that difference, $4 billion? raising dividends most of the year. you know the company most important in this overall equation, you know what it is, it is apple. apple reinstated the dividend in the last several months, i believe august they started paying as well. they are now paying $2.60 cents here, a big factor why dividends are going up here. you see apple on the upside today. brian, my own sense on this thing, instead of 15%, not going to be 40% that is for sure, might be 2025%. most people will still go for it they have got to not a lot of other places to go. it's stale competitive payout.

>> div daepsd as whole going up lately because companies haven't been able to find better uses for their cash often. however, can we sway some conviction some of that dividend payout you talked about has to do with the idea of higher taxes coming? pay now. pay now. >> seen the weakness in utilities. i tell you how to would matter. if the dividend tax went from 15% to 40% like some people are speculating that would be a disaster. the company said let's do buy backs potentially rather than pay dividends out considering the people that get the dividends respect going to get much of a benefit. i don't see it going to 40%. let's hope not for sure. the scape dal at the cia turned into an absolute soap opera. >> like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. >> it now involves more than general petraeus and his alleged

mistress. try to follow us here, now there is another general, another woman, a shirtless fbi agent, a secret e-mail account and more than the story than the best hollywood screenwriters couldn't dream up. ammanoffer, listen, not making light of it, a serious story involving national defense of national security, possibly, but lay this out for us. >> reporter: hey, brian. i got to tell you, even for a washington scape dal, this has become kind of a emic sex scandal in a town used to seeing sex scape dal just about every year or so let me walk you through who the players are so you can begin to follow the cast of characters here and what the national security stakes are in all of this. start with jill kelly. she is the woman at the center of the web. she is the tampa socialite allegedly e-mailing with general john allen, he is the top commander in afghanistan for u.s. military forces. those e-mails, some 30,000 pages worth worth, according to the fbi, were apparently possibly inappropriate in nature, indicating some kind of relationship between allen and

jill kelley, but jill kelley also raised the eyebrows of paula broadwell. paula broadwell is the woman who has now admitted to being general david petraeus's mistress, also his biographer around wrote the book "all in" about general david petraeus. broadwell apparently wrote some e-mails either anonymously or not, to jill kelley questioning her actions, we don't next actually what those e-mails said, those anonymous e-mails called jill kelley to reach doubt tout fbi. who did she reach out to? apparently an fbi agent who became later obsessed with the story, investigate the whole situation here around at some point in all of this the fbi agent sends shirtless pictures of himself to jill kelley. also involved in all of this, of course is general john allen. and he is the head commander over in afghanistan right now. his job could be threatened by all of they exploding in the past 24 hours.

within the last couple of minutes, white house press secretary jay carney was asked whether the president still supports general allen. >> the president thinks very highly of jeep allen and his service to his country. as well as the job he has done in afghanistan. at the request of the secretary of defense, the president has put on hold general allen's nomination of supreme allied commander in europe pending investigation of jeep allen's conduct by the department of defense. >> in washington, you never want your nomination for anything to be put on hold by the president but that is the situation that general allen faces himself with right now. and then just one sort of hollywood spy thriller detail in all of this, the way that general petraeus, the head of the ci the a and his hist tress, paula broadwell, apparently hid their e-mail correspondence as best they could was by setting up dummy e-mail accounts in which they would each write draft e-mails with messages to each other but not send those e-mails, then when the other party logged into that e-mail

account, they could check the draft, read the message and then delete it the theory being if you don't send the e-mail, then you haven't left as much of an electronic footprint for later investigators to find that apparently wasn't good enough to keep all of this coming to the attention of the fbi guys. so a big unfolding and rapidly moving scandal here in washington. >> should have checked hot mail. nobody uses that anymore. would have been truly secret. eamon, stick around, right? >> yep. >> the personal stuff is one things, now we know nothing cannot be excessed by somebody on the internet. bill daily, senior vice president at control risk group, a consulting firm. eamon is still there bill, many twice read the story, first, cybersecurity, not talking about incorrected national security database talking about presumably an online web mail-type system what can our viewers take away from this other than don't ever put anything into an e-mail or a draft? >> well, you said it all. that's pretty much what it's about. what it comes down to it the

issue any time you type something, you know exwhen you think you're not sending it, not going to be identified, you know, that's not true. any time you think you had something on your computer and you erased it and you thought it's gone forever, that's not true. that's why you always have to be very, very careful and think very clearly what you're going to commit any type of document, whether in a business place or personal life and make sure that when you -- when you have that, when you save it when you save it as a aft, you send it, that is what you want to say and that you wouldn't mind having published some point in front of people or perhaps read to family members. something to very much keep in mind. bill, is anything ever really deleted from the internet? >> well there are two things you have to think about here. there's both the internet and your computer. so on the internet is that there's internet companies that provide the switching mechanisms to be able to get your message from one place to another and then there's your computer, where sometimes the messages reside as well, is that on the internet, once it goes off your

compute and into the internet, you have no control over t and it may be stored for many, many years and could be accessed by subpoena, by law enforcement agencies, et cetera. on your computer, you may think you have erased something when, in fact, it was only put to what they may call slack space in the computer, meaning it now doesn't have a file name designated to it, but a good computer analyst, a good computer forensic analysis can provide -- resurrect those old messages you thought were one time deleted. >> eamon, you are not only a crack d.c. reporter but also our cybersecurity guy here at cnbc, having done a number of stories on this. put that hat on. what's your take, do people start to pull away this is a business story, too, from some of the cloud issue, some of these types of things push out to, does it cause people to retreat to the desktop? >> i don't yo think so everybody knew you shouldn't put anything

in e-mail you don't want out there said this in the abramoff scandal. this is what your internet history gets you, and in this case, the fbi has search war rarpts, went into paula broadwell's house and removed computer hard drives, anything she ever did in the internet on their offices now to scour over. the other question here for business people watching this segment is leadership, where is the line where what you do in your personal life, as inappropriate as it may be, slicks or personally, where does that interfere with your ability to execute the duties? that is the question the president will be wrestling with general allen what point do you want to paul commanding general from a battlefield in a time of war over dirty e-mails? now, there's a lot we don't know here, we don't know whether jill kelly or paula broadwell got inappropriate access to classified material that would be a different order. but as a leadership issue, when does a person's personal life complicate their ability to do their job and they back drag on the organization? >> a different segment, i'm sure one we will hit again.

touched on it yesterday. bill, final point tour, the smell test suggests here there maybe more to come. you're a former fbi guy. do you think there is one more shocking big development to come out? >> well, you know, i don't have my crystal ball in front of me, i can tell you the fact that the investigation is continuing and we are learning more information today than we had yesterday. my thought is in will continue to develop, i think there needs to be a much more thorough inquiry as regards any of those classified documents or, you know, as eamon said, transferred over. not saying there is going to be anymore big shockers but more details to be wrapped up in this investigation before they are fully and thoroughly understand who is related to whom and if any, in fact, classified documents were released. >> yeah, you got to -- to quote stephen wright, the come media, have to be on the ouija board of directors to figure this out. our bizzaro tuesday

continues, a lot more do here. the guy some tapped to run microsoft is out of microsoft. then he, we speak with the ceo of nokia, remember them? cot struggling mobile phonemaker have a secret weapon up its sleeve? [ abdul-rashid ] i've been working since i was about 16. you know, one job or the other. the moment i could access the retirement plan, i just became firm about it -- "i'm done. i'm out of here." you know, it's like it just hits you fast. you know, you start thinking

about what's really important here. ♪ ♪

mean time, some housing hopium today helping stocks. home depot beating the street, raising estimates for the year. masco in sympathy, lowe's also rise. what the heck just happened at microsoft?

the stock off about 5% the past two days and what we know is that steven sin november ski you can the president of its windows and windows live operations and a man who some said could become ceo of the company is now leaving the company, effective immediately. the question though is why is he leaving? joining us, brian coolly, editor at c net. all right, brian, some saw sin november ski, say that ten times fast, as the next ceo. what happened here? >> well, i think we can read a couple things into this, no one has the exact inside story yet two of our experts who cover microsoft very detailedly say this is part of a shift, microsoft starting to pull the company together into a cohesive unit and less about the very strong, legacy successful businesses of the past. the windows group you mentioned, detailed after sip november ski you can the office unit, the xbox team, those need to become cohesive if they are going to better map the success we have seen from apple and to a somewhat messier degree in the

android camp area it is all about a cohesive operation now, not just about operating systems or productivity software. those don't print with son summers like they used to. >> this is a "game of thrones" effectively, right? houses make consolidate under steve balmer? >> yeah, and ballmer is the guy, not sure people would say here is your product visionary for putting microsoft together. they have not been pulling their offerings together well. the online offerings not big rock stars, not a big part of this company's success, pouring money into them, little avail. what has to happen, he needs to find and clear the way for someone to pull the vision together. the successor to sip november ski you julie larson green, is known as having a hole listic

view deep roots in the windows team and recent filings indicate they will handle compensation and bone us in more on a cohesive company-white model, not just bayou knit. >> okay, so some people perhaps are thinking, band and by some people, i mean me, you can read into this departure as maybe being a sign that microsoft is not going to be happy with what they see from windows 8. doesn't necessarily sound like you agree with that? >> too early too say windows 8 is a hit or a flop, either way. microsoft windows editions have these incredibly long tails. xp, vista, windows 7, they all feather out together in the market at once. it is going to be a long time before you see windows 8 get pronounceable as a hit or not. plus, it is such a different animal in that it has a tablet version, a mobile version for the first time. no other windows has had that. the metrics are also going to be different. i don't believe this is any sort of pronouncement about the surface tablets or windows.

sin november ski had a long run, it may be just time for his turn. >> do you think it will be a hit? >> windows 8 has really great legs on this tablet. i don't think the computer side is going to be some kind of a breakout hit, the tablet, maybe. no guarantee, but they have got the only tablet that has full computer functionality, should you configure it that way, or media tablet functionality. gives it fingers into the notebook market, traditional tablets don't, mostly media tabbets. >> brian cooley of c net, appreciate your insight. great as always. one company that is betting big on windows for their new phones, nokia. now that stock has had a rough time, off 40% this year, double that the past three years. john forth is live in san francisco with the ceo of nokia and a former executive at microsoft. take it away. >> here with the ceo of nokia, used to be one of the top executive at microsoft. i want to start off with a

question sort of about the state of tech. we saw scott forestall ought out at am, sip november ski out at microsoft. the story from the executive is we want collaboration, these two software executives not great at collaborati collaborating, great in their software lane. how does that affect you how manage and build teams if you are seeing the same trends the way you run nokia? >> i think it is the case that building teams that can collaborate within a company and between top companies is really important. one of the thens we are proud of in terms of our work with microsoft is the deep level of cooperation we have been able to establish, for example, with the windows phone. we have hundreds of people working together every single day, working through the issues to get products out the door and resulting in great new products like the lumia 920 hitting the marketplace, collaboration on a global scale, absolutely necessary. >> behind us here, we have got a car that does mapping, mapping is something that nokia's invested quite a bit in spent, i believe, $8 billion on nav tech.

five years ago. today, talking about mapping, expanding that as a platform, being able to do mapping on ios, the i phone, as well as other platforms. how is that going to differentiate and lead to revenue for nokia? >> two different elements to revenue generation from our focus on mapping and location service. the first is when you purchase a lumia 920 and get a full range of differentiated capabilities, great lowlight photography and great location-based services, we can monetize it so that every time someone buys a device, we are helping to pay for the investment that we are making in location-based services because the quality of that experience in our devices is so much better than you see everywhere else. at the same time, part of what we announced here today in san francisco is that this new cloud platform, which we have called here, is taking the capabilities horizontallism you will see it on ios in the android environment there san

opportunity to step forward and say because of the years of investment, we have a leading capability in the area of mapping and location service. it's important for us we get it in front of as many people as possible because these types of platforms benefit to scale. >> you will see a day when licensing could pay for your r and d in maps. there is a case where licensing is already paying and then some for our r and d in maps, already profitable today. >> lumia sales, how are they doing really quick? >> very pleased wither slip, lineups at at&t stores, sellouts in russia, heard from australia, they are doing great. early days are positive. we have a lot of work ahead. >> russia and australia, you need north america to make it a hit. thank you, stephen elon for taking the time. >> thank you, jon and stephen. up next, making the bull case for jc penny. yeah, the bull case. before that, we have got to get fresh off the tell for example mary torchson, the market flash.

>> you surprised me, brian, shares of mbi, tanking down about 8%, this on the news that bank of america actually is looking to buy some of the company's note, in part, to block a concept decree that it believes if it goes through could actually send mbia into rehabilitation and liquidation and in turn, hurt bank of america as a policyholder of some of the insurance, of course, mbia issues on mortgage insurance. so, you can see its shares down just 9.4% on the news. brian, back to you. >> fresh off the phones. got to get mark palmer on the phone, probably the leading analyst on mbia. as i noted, we will make the bull case for jc penny coming up. there is one. who is the whipper in the tablet wars? one guy says ipad mini. the other guy says maybe it is not a tablet. tell you what it could be, coming up. ♪

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those are good things. upstairs, they will see fantasy. not fantasy... logistics. ups came in, analyzed our supply chain, inventory systems... ups? ups. not fantasy? who would have thought? i did. we did, bob. we did. got it. it is shaping up to be a very merry holiday season so far for bipartisan and noble. the book searle expecting strong sales for not only potentially books but for its nook e-book line. always a good day when you can

say nook-e book. don't give pup on jc penny yes. investing giant bill acman laid out his case for the turn around this morning on "squawk box." andrew ross sorkin did the interview and joins us now i loved your piece in the "new york times," free plug, by the way, not like you need it >> thank you, brain. appreciate it. a dose of reality for jc penny what do you mean? >> you know, when your sales are off, same-store sales are off for -- 26.1% in a quarter, it's enough to -- you can't just say that there's no problem here. there's a problem and it is a real problem. i made the bearish case and we heard from bill acman this morning on squawk and he acknowledged some of the problems. take a listen to this real quick. >> on a consolidated basis, it looks terrible, you are right. >> what he is saying here is to think about the company as two different companies. look, there's a startup version of the company and they are just

starting to get into that. that's what ron johnson is trying to do traps form the company and then there's the rest of the company. listen to this second piece of tape and then we can talk about it some more. >> what's going on and what you need to look at, this is really two companies. off startup, which we call new jcp, that started august 1st that startup gone from zero to 7 million square feet in a month. okay? that's ron in 11 years at apple went from zero and 3 million square feet, stick with me, went from 0 to 3 million square feet in 11 years, okay? >> okay. now let me just context liz this for you, brian. the issue here is that 11% of jc penney stores have been retrofitted, right? that is the good news. and in that 11%, they are now making about $269 every square foot. that's the good news. the bad news is they are still 89% of the stores that haven't been retrofitted and only making

$134 and starting to lose money and looks like the decline is accelerating. you have this tale of two cities, the question is which city is going to prevail, like an ice cube melting, name your analogy or comparison, but it is a problem. >> so, here is the situation, as i understand it the new stores, which are expensive to retrofit, are doing about twice as well in sales per square foot as the stores. the great news. >> do they have enough capital, cash, credit, whatever, to retrofit all their stores or are they sunk? >> so, there's some analysts and investors out there worried about that very issue and saying it is going to be a very close call. they have about $500 million in the bank right now. however, they need about $1 billion the next three years to retrofit properly. they do have a credit line of 1.5 billion. possible they could slow down their strategy, switch strategies, start discounting again, something they have about loathe to do and maybe get more consumers in the store. if, however, sales declines top to excel rate, those numbers

change completely and this come backstory suspect a comeback story, but it is a great store rained in a way, you want to root for them. >> the comeback of the come back. andrew ross sorkin, thank you so much. >> thank you, brian. >> catch andrew, becky and joe every morning beginning at 6 a.m. on "squawk box" here on cnbc. up next, rapid fire street talk, give you five stocks on the move right now. and what would you do to fix the fiscal cliff? do not forget to tweet us your most out-of-the-box ideas. we have gotten some great ones. we have gotten some completely insane ones. we like those better. street signs be back in a moment. ♪

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soda pop, let's do this for johnny. rapid fire street talk time beginning with clean energy, rising on a deal with ge. they are buying two ge systems to liquefy natural gas for long-haul trucks, going to

borrow up to 200 million from ge to do the deal. boone pickens owns 22% of cheap energy. by the way, the ceo will be on with "mad money" and jim cramer tonight, 6:00. green briar companies, rail car and bargemaker that stock higher. carl eye can taking another shot, up veiling a 9.99% stake, paid about $40 million for 2.7 million shares. says they are undervalued, intends to discuss possible strategic opportunities, second time around, folks. back in feb of '08, bought a big stake in the company. by the way, the stock was $10 a share higher then. dick's sporting goods, better-than-expected earnings, rose 21%. raising the full-year forecast, host hotels hired, by the way, both at stocks higher year-to-date. al ber marrow companies, raising the ratings to buy from a neutral target raise from 67 to 62. says even with a flattish sales outlook, strength its catalyst and fine chemical business

should puss up. albee natural, goldman raising the rating of f 5 to neutral, target inching up from 104. that stock has been a laggard. goldman sees three catalysts to help accelerate growth in 2013 and that is your bizarre row tuesday rapid fire street talk. is google waging a tablet war by making laptops? the company's newest chrome book goes on sale today. not quite a full-sized laptop. certainly not a tablet. but it sure is cheap, about $200. apple's ipad minibegins in the 330 range almost it be a hit? joining us, roger kay you president and founder of inpoint technologies and todd hazelton here with us on set, senior editor at technobuffalo. before we get into the mini, which you have in said hand, let's talk about this chrome book. you know jobs would have kill it had because he didn't like these things that sort of did things. sort of.

>> kind of did something but nothing well. what is your take on the chrome book? >> this it is a window to the internet, google service. my biggest issue, 199 dollars, only 3.5 hours of battery live. you were going to d.c., i wouldn't take it with me. 375 hours. >> wifi. that is the thing. it is basically a window to their service, not a full pc, not running windows 8 or mack osx. basic. >> inex-peeps sive. >> 200 bucks. google drive, google docks, right, ronner? >> still wouldn't do t. >> that is your new operating system, is it not? >> right. so brian, the web does become your os. actually this particular chrome book has kind of a hybrid aspect to it in that it has a hard drive, so the user can do some taxes locally, battery life is an issue and if it is a high mobility device, you want all-day battery life. >> roamer, do you think that the chrome book is any threat to ipad's tablet dom naps?

>> in the short term, clearly no the promise of chrome books is out in the future, when connectivity is ubiquitous and high speed and reliable and secure and you don't really need to contact anything locally in order to do computing. for now, everything is a little bit pointer mitt tent. yes, some people have very good connectivity but until everybody has great connectivity you can the chrome book's promise still lies ahead of us. >> yeah, i think that's good argument. my only thing towards that is that it's basic and you're not getting a full ecosystem, right? getting just a couple of google's applications, whereas if you go with a tablet like this, you know what you are getting, hundreds of thousands of applications. if i'm a junior high, middle school, high school, all i want too do is surf the web go on facebook, occasionally tweet and use a word processor. >> if you are on a bunnell anticipated going to school, that's not what kids are using laptops for these days, everybody wants games and music, 320 gigs of hard drive space. google is a smart company

though. why would they come out this with this? >> remember netbooks? where are netbooks these days? >> newton was ahead of its time. roger, you might have owned a newton. that thing was a killer device, just a little bit too soon. >> i do look perhaps old enough to have upped a newton, in fact, i never did. >> i did, too not an able comment. not a aim. just means you are smart. >> just checking. by the way, i do think that chrome books have a little bit more to offer over the long term than the netbooks. the netbooks were underpowered notebooks no way around that the issue with chrome books, over time, they can access all of google service and other things. even though todd was saying that they were kind of limited, actually, they do a lot of what you need and having, you know, 6 or 700,000 apps in your app store really doesn't mean that much when more than 500,000 of them are kind of useless. people, how many apps do you actually use?

use like 20, 30? >> these are applications that i use every day. if i had a chrome book, sort of like, google drive. >> you both -- you go through them, right? [ overlapping speakers ] >> talking about the device in your hand, would steve jobs like that device? >> no. >> i think woe. you can't say that because tough look back at how long a product's cycle goes. they are developing this when they were alive. you can't say they weren't. >> well, you could say that. i mean, they -- you don't know this isn't a derivative of the ten-inch one. so you know, the idea that it's an entirely, you know, denovo system, i'm not sure that that's the case. >> why wouldn't jobs like it, quickly, ronner? steve johns have hated the ipad mini? >> steve jobs just said there

wasn't enough screen real estate, the real experience was the 10-inch level. most people i know who have tried both like the ten inch. once it passed the size of a smartphone which you can throw in your pocket, you really want something large enough to do some work with. i think that the ipad minute was a defensive response on apple's part to an incursion potential by amazon, google and sam sung to the 7-inch space. said we better cover that. >> good debate and good discussion. both have you back on. go back to your respective corner he is. stay tuned. breaking news on mbia. earlier, talk about the story, referenced mark palmer, btig park the best team on the business on street since and welcome in mark palmer on the phone. mark, thanks for joining us on short notice. what is going on with mbia? >> well it goes back to last week, brian, when mbia launched a con sense solicitation. essentially what they are trying to do is remove mbia insurance,

which has a cross default to mbia's holding company bonds and replace it with national, which is more stable. >> mark do me a favor, i am not a very bright guy, speak english for me here what is going on with mbia what is the core story here? >> the core story here is that mbia and b of a have been locked in litigation now for several years over country wide and the fact that mbia suffered losses associated with countrywide a few years ago. mbia is trying to recover those losses. b of a, the suckers is to countrywide is trying to stop them from doing that. now, if mbia can achieve a settlement with b of a, for 2 to 3 billion dollars, then it will be in much better stead. we believe in the end of the day it is in b of a's best interest to achieve a settlement. if mbia wins in court over issues such as successor liability or if all of the information that they have uncovered during the last four years during the discovery

process becomes public, then that would allow all of the other plaintiffs who were suing b of a to be in anned a van table joyce position. >> you and i have spoken in the past and you said you believe they will achieve a settlement, a scare tactic then, the senior notes offer, a heavy hand? >> i will put it this way, last week, with the con sense sew leg 'tis, they were put in check. they are trying to get themselves out of check. because b of a's cds is deeply subordinated with insurance. mbia was trying to orfant unit in which that cds is. so, they were trying to create pressure on b of a to set. many people i have talked to over the last week have said that it didn't matter that much to b of a, we learned this afternoon it certainly does. >> it certainly does. back on offense is the bottom line, correct, bank of america? >> i wouldn't say offense. i say again, you know, they are trying to push back on a defensive maneuver by mbia, but the reasons that i just spoke

about that would cause b of a to set, meaning an adverse ruling in mbia country wide over the issue of successor liability, which could set a precedent that would be used by all of the other plaintiffs that's still on the table. that hasn't changed. all of the information that mbia has up covered during the discovery process, that it could dump out so that all those other plaintiffs could use it, that hasn't changed. what's important to realize here, b of a has $16 billion reserve against mortgage put back losses. if all that information were to come out if there was an adverse ruling on successor liability, then frankly, b of a won't have many defenses left against all those other plaintiffs. the big question what is going to go on with all the other plaintiffs suing? >> so, mbia, we got to go it is essentially the proxy? >> very much so. >> this is the proxy for the bigger battle, that's why it's important for our viewers to watch, watch the outcome of this

you may know more about the others. mark, thanks for joining us us. appreciate it. >> certainly. >> up next, more on the incredibly bizarre case of the tech millionaire wanted for murder in pell lease and his claim he airport gonna let the police take him.

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on closing bell, some democrats in congress are now warming to mitt romney's proposal during the campaign to limit tax deductions. we are going to look whether that could be a key to a fiscal cliff deal. also, cisco set to report earnings after the bell. ceo john chambers will break down the numbers exclusively for us before he even speaks to analysts. and will monday's trading glitch at the new york stock exchange be the latest dagger in the heart of investor confidence in the exchange's ceo duncan niederauer at the top of the hour. look forward to seeing you then. >> you, too.

in bizarre row stories this is perhaps the most bizarre, gate who founded anti-virus company, mcafee is wanted for murder in belize. there are reports he is hold up in his compound and the police may be there. there's all kinds of information out there. robert frank is here now with more. what is going on? belize? >> the short answer is we don't know. we get smoke signals, we do know. the techie spiky-haired tattooed tycoon is wanted for questioning in a murder in belize. he is in hiding and refuses to turn himself in a series of dramatic tweets shows he is preparing for some kind of end game. apparently, calling joshua davis of wired magazine, who tweeted these conversations. in one tweet last night, mcafee said, "i am adept at hiding and i will do whatever it takes to stay alive. "this morning, mcafee said "power was cut to the house i'm in. i think this is it." in his last call today, he said he is not armed. if the police shoot him, it's

not because he has a weapon. now, police tell me they haven't found mcafee, not about to shoot him and didn't cut powers to his homes, they say he is delusional and paranoid and want him to turn himself in. a business associate of mcafee's told me this is all a shake down, the police are targeting mcafee for his money. it's up clear how much mcafee has, of course. he lost almost all of his $100 million fortune before he moved to belize. he started a baio tech company in belize using local jungle plants. he also runs a large water ferry operation. now, mcafee hasn't returned our calls or e-mails but all sounds like a scene out of "the fugitive" or "heart of darkness" if joseph conrad were only alive. >> where is curtz? >> the horror, the horror. >> diamond-tipped will. when you say biotech -- >> pharmaceuticals, in the

broadest sense. >> they wanted me to be general, didn't realize i wasn't even in the army anymore. thank you. >> thanks. we are all about fiscal cliff solutions here on cnbc. i got my rise above button right here, america. coming up next, debate your out-of-the-box ideas and run them past our experts. [ male announcer ] this is steve. he loves risk. but whether he's climbing everest, scuba diving the great barrier reef with sharks, or jumping into the market, he goes with people he trusts, which is why he trades with a company that doesn't nickel and dime him with hidden fees. so he can worry about other things, like what the market is doing and being ready, no matter what happens, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense, from td ameritrade. to a world of super-connected intelligence. the potential of freescale unlocked.

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welcome to the world leader in derivatives. welcome to superderivatives.

as our nation inches closer to the fiscal cliff, we're on a mission to find a fix. that sometimes means thinking outside the box. so we asked you to get creative and come up with some ideas. here are some of them. joe says, dock congress and the president two days pay for every day worked if they go over the cliff. another viewer says if we go over the cleef, both party leaders should resign. i like this one. sam says, ask apple for a bailout. i'm not even sure they have enough money. let's bring in our guests. jimmy, first to you. what do you make of these? any of them work for you? >> pay for performance. i like that idea.

let's link salary to benefits of our politicians. not just this one time to the fiscal cliff. perhaps to our long-term growth rate. i like that idea a lot. >> we've got a lot of tweets in as well, chris, for a flat tax. probably about the same amount for a vat, right? a federal sales tax. what do you make of those ideas? >> well, i'm a big fan of a flat tax. everyone would win with a flat tax. taxpayers that have a much simpler time at tax time. it would make the economy grow, which would benefit everyone. a vat, however, is a terrible idea. frankly, it won't go anywhere because a vat would tax consumption but state governments already have retail sales taxes. there's no way the states would ever let the federal government impose a brand new tax on their tax base. >> let's dig into the idea. i do support a vat a little bit, if it's very small. by the end of our lives, it will

be a 100% tax, probably. you capture a lot of the economy under the ground, the cash economies. drug dealers aren't going to pay taxes, but they're going to buy stuff. >> that's not true. actually, in europe vat evasion is a huge problem. kbroo european countries spend an enormous amount of time trying to catch vat thieves. it's really not a good idea. anyway, when you look at the federal budget, the problem is overspending. that's why we have a $1 trillion deficit. i don't think going to the tax lever is a good idea. washington doesn't need a whole new source of revenue. that would be just feeding the beast, as i would put it. >> actually, i do think washington needs more revenue. but i don't like the idea of a vat consumption tax. i like the idea of a consumption tax, which would eliminate the bias in the tax code against savings and investment. you'd get more revenue from economic growth. >> tax is generally meant to

deter certain behaviors. when we talk about higher income taxes, draw your own conclusions. we know what the answer is not. that's the higher taxes on the wealthy. i've argued we should pass the bill, raise taxes on the wealthy, because it's not enough money to make a dent. >> listen, it's sort of a solution -- >> it's a solution for about a week and a half of revenue. >> right. it's not going to create any jobs. it's not going to create any growth. it's not going to do much about the debt. we're spending all this time and angst and political capital on something that in the long run does not solve any problem. >> chris, what would you do? you have power for a day. what would you do? >> i would cut spending. at our website downsizinggovernment.org, we talk about cutting just about every federal department. the key thing is fairness. we need to cut low-income programs that are exploding in cost, but we need to match that with cutting business subsi

disand defense. beam will accept spending cuts if they are perceived as fair. for example, the biggest business subsidy program is farm subsidie subsidies. farmers made high incomes, above the average income of american households. we need to cut farm subsidies. farmers don't need the $30 billion a year they get from washington. at the other end, we need to look at these low-income programs like food stamps. food stamps have quadrupled in cost over the last decade. when you think about it, when food stamps were put in place, the main problem with poor people was that they didn't get enough calories. today that problem has almost disappeared. low-income people are actually more obese and have a more overweight problem than other americans. >> debt over gdp. let's grow the gdp. >> that'll make a big dent. we'll have you back soon to continue the debate. it's not over. tomorrow, we're going to be live from the white house bringing you a special report. that means i'm hopping on a train right after this show. all right. a quick break. what famous frenchman won't

surrender to the tax man and is fleeing france because of the high taxes? we'll tell you next. ♪ ♪ ♪

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